A stint in the Army helped Michael change his perceptions about Arabs.

Who could have known that the two Israelis who were taught diametrically different versions of history -- Forsan Hussein is an Israeli-Palestinian and Michael Bavly is an Israeli Jew -- would find themselves together at a university in Massachusetts?

The meeting at Brandeis University during orientation in 1996 forged an unlikely friendship and a mutual understanding that has continued.

While U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell was trying to find a way to solve the crisis in the Middle East, an Arab and a Jew were at Muhlenberg College Monday night patting one another on the back, joking with one another and finishing one another's sentences.

"Peace is inevitable," Hussein, 24, told an audience of more than 150 in a lecture and discussion sponsored by the campus Hillel. "Our similarities by far exceed our differences."

"I come to agree," added Bavly, 29. "I don't come to disagree."

They didn't always respect differing views.

Hussein grew up in the small village of Sha'ab in the Galilee. He didn't meet a Jew until he was 10. He was taught that Jews came to his village, kicked out part of his family and destroyed villages.

"Jews have horns, that's what I thought," Hussein said. "That's what I was taught."

His elementary teacher suggested going to a nearby village to meet Jewish youngsters. He didn't tell his parents.

Along the way, he encountered a Jewish man holding something. He was scared, until the man reached into the basket and handed Hussein and his friends chocolate chip cookies.

"One chocolate chip cookie has changed my entire life," he said.

During a day in which Arab and Jewish youngsters played soccer and planted trees, Hussein said, "I didn't see any horns. I definitely didn't see guns."

Two weeks later, he was supposed to be host to Jewish children at his home but still hadn't told his mother. He asked the Jewish youngsters to tell his mother, "Sabah al khayr" -- Arabic for good morning.

"All she could do at that point was give them a big hug and a big kiss," Hussein recalled.

Bavly grew up in Herzliya, a nearly all Jewish area just outside Tel Aviv. All he knew about Arabs was what he saw on TV or heard from friends and family.

In history classes, he was taught that Arabs were war mongers.

"An Arab is an Arab, they all hate you -- that's what you're taught," Bavly said. "I knew that the Arabs were dirty, barbaric."

Bus trips to visit Arab students in neighboring towns helped, though Bavly recalled the Arab students sitting on one side and Jewish students sitting on the other.

Working as an Israeli soldier, Bavly began to realize he had too much power for a 19-year-old -- he was deciding whether Arabs could cross borders.

By the time he began attending Brandeis, he said, "I was sick and tired of this conflict. I was sick and tired with how people were shouting about it, how people were one-sided."